Instagram's Working on a New Way for Brands to Expand Influencer Campaigns

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Instagram has announced that it's working on a new ad format which will better enable brands and influencers to partner-up in a more financially beneficial, and transparent way.

As reported by AdAge, Instagram's working on a new ad type that it's calling "Branded content ads", which will let brands sponsor posts created by celebrities and publishers, and then promote them as they would their other ad efforts.

"Until now, brands could hire popular Instagram users to work on ad campaigns and promote products with branded content, but the posts would only reach the followers of the influencer. Branded content ads let the advertisers promote these Instagram posts just like they would any other ad."

Of course, brands could always use influencer posts as ads via their own profiles, but this new offering streamlines and formalizes that approach, and will enable businesses to maximize the value of their influencer marketing efforts.

The offering will essentially be an extension of Instagram's existing branded content tagging system - now, along with the 'Paid Partnership' tags (as shown below), brands will also be able to extend their promotions of the same.

The latter stat isn't new, Instagram noted the same last year, but that trend has seemingly remained steady as additional users have come on-board, which bodes well for the platform ad prospects.

Instagram also noted that it will continue to ramp up its push to remove inauthentic activity, including purchased followers and likes, in order to clean-up its platform and improve the integrity of its metrics - another key consideration for influencer marketing. Just last week, Instagram's parent company Facebook confirmed that it's taking legal action against a group of known social engagement dealers originating from China, which could be a big step in increased legal enforcement of such practice.

With influencer marketing becoming a key part of the Instagram eco-sphere, it makes sense for the platform to amplify its efforts on this front, and it's interesting to note how the platform is looking to work with influencers to boost such partnerships.